The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the city police arrested three
people on Saturday for allegedly duping a construction material supplier
to the tune of Rs4crore.
The arrested people had floated a company claiming to be a sister
concern of one of the most reputed realty firms in the city, in order to
impress the victim and gain his trust.
The arrested three have been identified as Farooq Sarang, 41, Nikhil Solak, 36, and Prashant Padade, 42.
According
to the EOW officers, the trio, along with a few others who are wanted
in the case, had set up a company known as Supreme Infra Private Limited
at Lower Parel. In 2010, they came in contact with complainant Hitesh
Sanghvi, 39, who is into the business of supplying construction
material, for some business deal.
“The Supreme Infra company
officials gave wrong information to Sanghvi in order to gain his trust.
They also claimed to be a sister concern of a reputed realty firm in the
city. They claimed of having 16% stake in the said realty firm,” said
an EOW officer, requesting anonymity.
The officer added that in
order to impress Sanghvi even more, the company officials showed him a
property in Dahisar and claimed that their construction project would
start there. “A supervisor at the site too assured Sanghvi about their
stake in the reputed realty firm. This was nothing but a set-up.
Sanghvi, unfortunately, got convinced about the reliability of the
company and provided construction material worth Rs4crore to Supreme
Infra over a period of time,” said the officer.
When he did not
receive any payment for his goods, he tried to contact the company.
That’s when he found out that he had been cheated. He then lodged a
complaint with the NM Joshi Marg police station. The case was later
transferred to the EOW for investigations.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Sunday arrested a man from
Karnataka for allegedly siphoning Rs71.38 lakh from the bank accounts of
two Mumbai-based persons.
The accused has been identified as Haiderali Khalasi, a resident of Hubli in Karnataka.
According
to EOW sources, Khalasi was arrested after a complaint was filed by
Amit Francis Ferao, the manager of the Malad branch of one of the
leading private banks in the city. As per the complaint, one of the
account holders of the bank had learnt that lakhs of rupees were
transferred from his account through the Real Time Gross Settlement
(RTGS) facility of the bank.
“Since the transaction was not done
by the victim, he asked the bank to look into the matter. On making
further inquiries, the bank learnt that Rs10.20 lakh had also been
transferred from another customer’s account through the RTGS facility.
The account into which money had been deposited from these two accounts
was the same, and belonged to a bank in Karnataka. The account was
Khalasi’s,” said an EOW officer, requesting anonymity.
He added the bank officials then lodged a complaint with the EOW. A police team left for Karnataka and apprehended Khalasi.
“His
interrogation revealed that in order to conduct a transaction through
the RTGS facility, permission from the account holder is required.
Khalasi had made bogus documents of the two account holders with the
help of his associate Salim Firhaddi, who is wanted in the said case,”
the officer said. Khalasi was produced before a concerned court, which
remanded him to police custody till May 2. The police have also
recovered Rs47.99 lakh from him.